Astute
Automate your B2B brand going viral, with new media creators
1K followers
Automate your B2B brand going viral, with new media creators
1K followers
Astute is the first B2B new media platform, starting with creator partnerships. We monitor your presence in the new media, build a data-backed strategy around the creators your buyers trust, and run the partnerships on autopilot. All within minutes.
Congrats on the launch, @vida_stanic1 and @abhishek_manikandan !
The B2C market has already proven the creator economy is massive - I actually believe the B2B opportunity is even bigger, there just hasn't been a tool that makes it possible until now.
That's exactly why Astute clicked the moment I saw it. Excited to watch this take off.
Astute
@abhishek_manikandan @kristian_asani Thanks Kristian! We're so excited to be backed by Silicon Gardens. You and the team have been incredible at every step of our journey so far. Excited for what's to come!
Astute
@vida_stanic1 @abhishek_manikandan @kristian_asani Thank you for the support Kristian, the shift in how products gain awareness and get purchased has definitely shifted to channels where trust is higher.
@astute is helping to fill that gap for B2B companies unsure how to activate this channel.
Astute
@vida_stanic1 @kristian_asani Thank you Kristian! Completely agree - the creator economy has been tremendously successful in B2C, but in a world where developing trust niche, high-intent audiences that convert into large contract sizes is crucial to company's growth, I struggle to see how the B2B opportunity isn't even bigger. Really excited for the journey ahead!
Astute
This is a problem I’ve run into countless times myself: you know the audiences you want to reach are listening to podcasts, reading newsletters and following creators, but actually finding the right people, figuring out who to work with and managing everything is incredibly manual.
So excited about what @vida_stanic1, @abhishek_manikandan and the @Astute team are building. A problem I genuinely wanted solved. Huge congrats on the launch 🚀
Astute
@abhishek_manikandan @rizzykicks Lucky to have you on our team!
Astute
@abhishek_manikandan @vida_stanic1 Can’t wait to help more startups solve the distribution challenges we faced at @Uizard, using creators to reach the right audiences and build a much stronger new media strategy around their brand.
Astute
Hey everyone!
My name is Vida, and I am the Founder and CEO of Astute (www.joinastute.com). 👋
A bit of context on us: I ran growth at Fluidstack through the $2M to $2B stage, @abhishek_manikandan was an ML engineer at The Trade Desk. We met at EF London and just closed an oversubscribed $1.2M pre-seed from VCs and angels to build the first B2B new media company, starting with creator partnerships.
As a B2B marketer, I knew that the marketing playbook (ads, PR, SEO) doesn’t work anymore. At Fluidstack I quickly realised that our audiences weren’t clicking on our ads. Instead, they were reading Substacks like SemiAnalysis, listening to podcasts like Acquired and TBPN, and scrolling on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Every team I speak to already knows this. But most can't activate this channel today, because it takes months of manual searching, cold outreach, and back-and-forth, with most of it going nowhere.
Even the current tools in the space don’t work in the way that brings value. As a marketer, and now a founder, I want to understand the best types of creators, the optimal audience size, best performing platforms - for my company. I want a personalized data-backed strategy. And then I just want it all done for me. I don’t mind investing $10k in creators who will bring me customers, but I don’t have the bandwidth to manage the CRM, comms, payments. All the current players fail to understand this.
On top of that, most offer only ad slots, but the real value is in an endorsement or editorial partnership with a creator. But editorial partnerships are difficult to productize. They lead to organic content which is why they require a higher volume of granular data from both sides, to ensure the right match. Competitors haven’t cracked this - we have, with over 16,000 creators in our proprietary network.
So we built Astute. We have two AI agents - one is a new media manager for B2B companies, the other is a talent manager for creators.
How it works
Astute first listens. Astute monitors over a million creator posts every minute and surfaces where you, your competitors, and your category are being discussed, including the specific threads worth engaging with.
Then it builds a strategy. 1,000s of data points turn into a creator strategy specific to you: who your buyers already follow, which audiences overlap with your ICP, and what a realistic first three months looks like.
It handles the partnerships. The manager agent searches the 16,000 creators on the talent side - people with loyal, high-intent audiences on Substack, podcasts, LinkedIn and X - picks the right ones, and locks in the partnerships once you approve. Editorial features, podcast guest slots, newsletter ads, event collabs, and more.
And it measures ROI. Impressions, conversions, brand mentions, and visibility inside AI search engines.
But this is only the beginning. We are going after the full new media stack. We want to build a space where every B2B company will come to build their brand, legitimacy, and an owned audience in new media.
Now the juicy stuff - our Product Hunt deal
Go to https://company-app.joinastute.com/
Apply code PRODUCTHUNT
Do it before 31 August, 23:59 PT - the code expires automatically
Finally - HUGE thanks to @vedranrasic for hunting us today 🚀
@abhishek_manikandan @vedranrasic @vida_stanic1 Tracking ROI on podcasts and LinkedIn has historically been a black box, are you relying on unique landing pages and promo codes or using probabilistic attribution models for conversion tracking? congrats for launch 🙌
Astute
@abhishek_manikandan @priya_kushwaha1 Hi Priya! That is correct - for podcasts and Linkedin, in the case of a company URL being present, we track CTR and link this to company conversions via a custom pixel, or alternatively attribute from a promo code. For organic appearances, we track standard metrics (impressions, listens, etc) and use AEO (AI engine optimisation) as an attribution heuristic, in addition to EMV.
Astute
@priya_kushwaha1 From the engineering side it is deterministic wherever we can get it. Tagged URLs and promo codes cover placements with a link and the pixel closes the loop to conversion. The measurement rules are written to fail closed because a false positive means telling a sponsor they got something they did not. For organic appearances like a podcast slot we report listens and impressions, whether the mention shows up in our monitoring and whether AI engines start citing the company, and those are labelled as influence signals rather then conversion claims.
Astute
@abhishek_manikandan @vida_stanic1 Excited to be on this journey with you
@abhishek_manikandan @vedranrasic @vida_stanic1 Every founder I talk to knows they should be sponsoring Substacks and podcasts, but nobody has the bandwidth to manage the CRM. Astute hits the nail on the head, qq how do you prevent audience fatigue if multiple B2B companies in the same category are using Astute to target the same niche creators? congrats guys🎉
Astute
@abhishek_manikandan @vikramp7470 Thanks Vikram - we're getting the same feedback here so must be doing a little bit of something right.
Re your qq - The simplest answer is that we have over 16,000 creators, and each company's unique goals, audiences, context, previous marketing, current growth stage, funding, current brand position score is all taken into consideration when we make a match. It happens rarely that it's always 1 creator that gets picked by all companies, even in the same niche.
@abhishek_manikandan @vida_stanic1 that makes complete sense factoring in brand position score and funding stage gives much better spread than just surface-level category tags. Appreciate the clear answer.... all the best🫡
Astute
@vedranrasic @vida_stanic1 @vikramp7470 Great question Vikram! Our matching agent uses a company profile built out initially using signals from a large number of enrichment providers, and then contextually completed from all the questions and answers given by the user (which is updated on a frequent cadence by our strategy agent). We also collect historical performance context from companies in the same niche that have run campaigns. This means, based on the strategies given to the company, the overlap is already fairly minimal for each individual company - one company could have a brand building strategy involving dedicated newsletter features, another could be trying to build their founder/executive credibility with podcast appearances.
Even if there is overlap, this is normal and expected for the creator partnership field, and shouldn't affect any company's growth ability!
Astute
@abhishek_manikandan @vedranrasic @vida_stanic1 @vikramp7470 I should add that our creator network is growing at a rapid pace because we don't charge creators or take a % of their fees.
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@vida_stanic1 Last night in the office I realised i don't say this often enough - I couldn't be more grateful you're my co-founder. You're the hardest working, most ambitious, insane people I know. The good insane. You get us places, and you get things done. Thank you for all you do for our startup Vida!
Astute
@vida_stanic1 @abhishek_manikandan This is actually so true!
LeadDelta
Super excited to hunt this one.
I run LeadDelta (PH SaaS of the Year 2022), so I live inside B2B distribution all day. Somewhere in the last 2 years, the answer to "where did this deal come from?" stopped being an ad. It's a newsletter now. Or a podcast. Or someone on LinkedIn my buyer has been following for three years. Everyone I talk to knows this is happening.
So when Vida showed me Astute I got it immediately.
The more I got to know her and her co-founder, the more I realized there isn’t a better team to build this company. Vida spent years at Fluidstack helping grow the company from $2M to $2B using this exact channel! Her co-founder Abhi was a creator himself - 15M+ views on YouTube is HUGE - he's literally the guy on the other end of the partnership emails.
Vida and Abhi are around all day, ask them anything.
Congrats on the launch team! Proud to be a customer (and Hunter!).
Astute
@vedranrasic Thanks so much for hunting us today Vedran!
LeadDelta
@vida_stanic1 Brilliant product! Super proud of the team!
Astute
@vedranrasic Thanks so so much!
Astute
@vedranrasic Thank you for the support and all the advice you keep giving us. Great to have you as a mentor.
LeadDelta
@rizzykicks well done Riz! It is my pleasure to work with your team.
Astute
@vedranrasic Thank you for hunting us Vedran! As someone who produced engineering content, I saw firsthand the value of tech companies reaching their audiences through creators they trust - and we want to make doing that as easy as talking to your agent with Astute. We really appreciate your mentorship!
LeadDelta
@abhishek_manikandan, you've built quite an amazing product, Abhi!
You certainly made it a hell of a lot easier. Thrilled to work alongside you.
Astute
@vedranrasic Thanks for hunting us Vedran, and for the advice along the way. Good to have you as a customer as well as our Hunter!
LeadDelta
@shehroz_astute you have one awesome team, love working with proactive, smart people!
Congratulations on the launch of Astute! (and a terrific launch video!) Compared to B2C, B2B has a lot of catching up to do due to the shift in marketing from the old playbook to how audiences now consume media. Very excited to watch your journey! @vida_stanic1 @abhishek_manikandan
Astute
@abhishek_manikandan @randy_fn Thank you so much Randy - I could not agree more. B2C marketing has been a bit epic over the years. B2B on the other hand had to follow the professional "norms". But I think we all now know where attention is and that we need to grab it. Just have to find a way to do it - which Astute is :)
Astute
@randy_fn thanks Randy! The game is changing and we are here to help B2B companies catch-up.
Astute
@vida_stanic1 @randy_fn Completely agree - it's about time B2B makes use of creator marketing, in our opinion one of the most effective channels for gaining trust in B2B buyers. B2C marketing can get away with nurturing impulsive purchases with paid ads, but for a six figure B2B contract, it's vital to earn that trust. Previously you could do this with PR; but in this age of new media, creator partnerships are how this will be done, and we're building Astute to pave the way for exactly that.
Astute
Hey - I'm Abhi, the Founder and CTO of Astute!
Before Astute, after graduating from Oxford Uni (CS), I worked as an ML engineer at The Trade Desk, but on the side I ran a B2B engineering YouTube channel that ended up doing 15M+ views (itisAbhi on YT). I've personally received 100s of partnership emails from brands.
And to be honest, I said no to almost all of them. Not because I didn't want to work with companies, but because saying yes meant weeks of back-and-forth, contracts, chasing invoices... And with a lot of companies I also didn't want to work, because they were not relevant to my content at all. It made zero sense.
So when we started building Astute I was really excited to fix that side of the problem. The creator side. We built the talent manager agent I wish I had. And over 16,000 creators in our network are already using it!
Happy to go deep on how any of it works - the matching, agent architecture, whatever. All questions are welcome!
Astute
@abhishek_manikandan I don't say this enough but I also have to flag how lucky I feel Abhishek is my co-founder. Not only is he a perfect person to be building in our space (ex creator!), he's an incredibly talented and hardworking ML engineer, but also an incredible human. Kudos to him!
Astute
@abhishek_manikandan your a rockstar! So impressed watching you perform on little sleep and monster energy to get us to launch.
Yep, putting right companies in front of a right audience with the relevant message - might sounds simple but the devil is in the details, as usual. And such a massive pain - already registered!
Astute
@yermolenkoa I'll be mega honest here and overexpose a bit - I thought it'd be waaaaaay simpler than it is. You are 100000% right - devil is in the detail. Thanks for signing up :)
Astute
@yermolenkoa Welcome aboard! From the engineering side you are completely right that the devil is in the details, and the specific detail is the match. Right audience means knowing that a particular newsletter's readers are your buyers and that the creator has actually covered your category, not just that they have a big following. That is where most of the data work went, and it is what makes the agent's picks hold up once the partnership is live. Would love to hear how it goes for you, feel free to shout if anything comes up.